The photo is of Pinal County, Arizona, Sheriff Paul Babeu at a press conference he called on Saturday, 18 February 2012 at which he announced (to almost no one's surprise) that he is gay. As a result of allegations published in the Phoenix New Times, Babeu resigned his volunteer post as co-chair of the Romney campaign in Arizona and admitted that he is gay.

The allegations involve Babeu's purported threats against a former lover, a man identified only as Jose, who is believed to be a Mexican national in the U.S. legally.

Babeu is currently running for the GOP nomination for the 4th Congressional District in Arizona. The primary is scheduled for 28 February; Babeu is one of three Republicans seeking the nomination. The other two are far right wing conservatives too. The district is geographically enormous and mostly rural and expected to go GOP anyway, but there will be Democrats in the primary. How much of a chance the Dem nominee will have is a good question, but probably slim to none.

Babeu is a Joe Arpaio wannabe, with the same wide streak of meanness. But his hypocrisy streak is even wider.

There are already minor whispers calling for his resignation, but Babeu is having none of it. Apparently he thinks there's nothing wrong with a public official posting nude photos of himself on an internet dating site, so long as he's not married. . . . . .

I didn't post any links, but the above information is readily available through a quick google search.



Tansy Gold, Pinal County, Arizona

But no answers...

before you know it we'll be talking about "pink states" instead of "red states."

I often wonder if there are any heterosexual males left in that party who aren't also attracted to men and little kids.

The women are all brittle authoritarians who think life is supposed to suck as much as possible so they focus on pie in the sky when they die (that's a lie!).

Saps runnin up heyuh too!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/how-3-myths-drive-europe-s-response-to-debt-crisis-harald-uhlig.html

In many ways, things in Europe look better than they did just a month or two ago. The European Central Bank is providing banks with almost unlimited cash to buy their governments’ bonds. Yields on Italian debt have declined. This breather is a perfect opportunity to examine some pernicious -- and widely circulated -- myths that have emerged from the crisis and could still do much harm.

Myth No. 1: Italy’s interest burden was unmanageable....one has to wonder: Who is spooking whom? With so much drama over so little, is it any wonder that bond investors have doubts about Italy’s ability to pay?

Myth No. 2: Fiscal austerity means disaster, or growth policies require spending.

It is nice, of course, for governments to be able to borrow money and sprinkle it generously over its citizens. Once the flow stops, however, it should come as no surprise that the citizens are unhappy. That will happen sooner or later because what has been borrowed almost always needs to be repaid. Some people believe there is an alternative: Let’s examine what happens if the government can no longer borrow these generous handouts, and instead has to extract these resources from its own citizenry. Will that promote growth? What about that old Keynesian idea of having some citizens dig holes that other citizens then fill: Wouldn’t that do wonders for the economy?

This is wondrous thinking, indeed. Imagine a beautiful island whose inhabitants don’t need to exert themselves to live happily. Each citizen has an apple tree that each day at noon drops an apple sufficiently large to feed its owner. A citizen’s only task is to pick up the fruit and eat it; otherwise he or she can spend the day at the beach. The per-capita GDP of such an economy would be one apple a day. Enter a government that decides it needs to tax away the entire harvest every day, and then pays each citizen an apple a day for lying on the beach. They would have done so anyhow, but they now get paid by their government for performing a “service.” GDP has been doubled. The services provided by the government are accounted for by how much they cost -- an apple in this example. It would be easy to keep going and even triple or quadruple the original one-apple-per-day GDP.

Now imagine fiscal austerity is imposed, say, by eliminating the government. Yes, GDP would come crashing down; it would fall 50 percent in this example. The citizens, however, are no worse off: They still get to eat an apple a day, just as before. They may even be better off in cases where the government required them to perform an onerous task in exchange for their salaries, such as sitting in a government office all day. Moreover, if the tax imposed on citizens is a labor tax on collecting the apples, then high tax rates might have been preventing them from collecting the apples in the first place...

(Harald Uhlig is chairman of the economics department at the University of Chicago and a contributor to Business Class. The opinions expressed are his own. WHICH EXPLAINS THE SQUIRRELLY IDEAS..IT'S THE CHICAGO SCHOOL, BOYS)

Almost makes me ashamed to be a Chicago native. . . .


meh.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb12/counterfeit-derivatives-Zeus02-12.html

THIS IS A MUST-READ ARTICLE--EXPLAINS THE LAST DECADE!

Here is how the counterfeit value derivative con works. It’s a game of “I pretend, you pretend, we all pretend, and the taxpayer will pay in the end”:

1) I’ll create an instrument, say a credit default swap (CDS), an unregulated insurance with no capital requirements, with a certain “notional” value. Notional value is just something I assign. It does not have to be attached to or backed by any real asset or actual money/principal, but I can pretend as if it is. (Notional amount.)

2) As a seller, I will just declare that this swap covers the full value X of this company, contract, etc. if credit event Y happens. I receive lucrative insurance premiums and fees for my unbacked promise. The CDS’s value is based in nothing more than my promise to pay. I don’t have to have adequate capital reserves on hand, but I can pretend as if I do perhaps with some mini-reserves based on objective-seeming risk ratios calculated by my mathematical models. (credit default swap.)

3) As a buyer, you can then buy as many of these CDS’s as you want, even for a single default. If you are really sure something is going to tank you can insure it 30 times over (or a 100 or 1,000) and get 30 (or 100 or 1,000) times the return when it goes bust! In regulated insurance it is unacceptable to insure beyond the full replacement value of the underlying asset. Not so with CDS’s. The seller has gotten 30x the premiums and the buyer gets 30x value in the event of default. As a buyer of this phony “insurance” you don’t have a stake in the affected properties, but you can essentially pretend you do.

4) As buyer and seller of CDS’s either one of us can assign our risks to a third party through another contract, and pretend as if we are covered in case our own game playing blows up in our faces. This allows us to retain even less reserve capital and spend freed-up funds on more high-risk, high-(pseudo) return speculation. (The monster that ate Wall Street.)

5) We can purchase and sell of these derivative contracts to each other at unlimited rates to generate massive volume and huge fees and profits. We can simply hyper-cycle risk and take our chunk each time.

According to the Bank of International Settlements, as of June 2011 total over-the-counter derivatives contracts have an outstanding notional value of 707.57 trillion dollars, ( 32.4 trillion dollars in CDS’s alone). Where does this kind of money come from, and what does it refer to? We don’t really know, because over-the-counter derivatives are not transparent or regulated.

With regulated economic markets, when an underlying real asset is impaired (i.e. the company in question is bankrupt, the mortgage has defaulted, etc.), market value is assessed, default insurance is paid up to replacement or full value, bond holders and stock holders make claims on remaining value and the account is closed. There is no need for bailouts because order and proportion of compensation has been established and everything is attached to the value of the underlying asset.

When the unreal, counterfeit economy intrudes, you now have a situation where a person can put in an unregulated, but recognized, claim to be paid a thousand times over in case of impairment. Say market participants have negotiated for a bankrupt company a 70% payback for bondholders and (36% payback for insurance claims), and I come with not one but rather 1,000 CDS claims demanding to be paid for each CDS....

THIS IS AN OVERALL LOOK AROUND THE MEDITERRANEAN, GIVING THE HISTORY OF THE REGION, BOTH THE EUROZONE FIASCO AND THE ARAB SPRING, AND SHOWING HOW THE TWO WILL SET THE REGION ABLAZE...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/what-lies-store-cradle-rocks-world

http://www.resilientcommunities.com/community-thursday-whats-more-precious-than-gold/

More than just Economic Failure

It shouldn’t be news to you, but we live in a economically interdependent world. Think about that for a second. Most of us couldn’t get through an hour without relying on something that’s provided by the global production system. We are completely and utterly dependent on it. So is our community, our state, and our nation.

What this means is that any economic failure, of the level and type we are likely to experience (we get news to this effect nearly every day now), will crash more than the price of stocks and bonds. It will also likely outlast any cache of food/ammo you stashed away for a rainy day. How? Here’s the list: Political chaos. Supply system disruptions/failures. Guerrilla warfare. Hyper-crime. Ubiquitous corruption. Totalitarian nationalism. Police states. Rationing. State seizures (either due to corrupt state officials or by decree). Shortages. Failed states. As you can see, it’s a long and ugly list.

More Precious Than Gold

IN an environment this uncertain, an investment gold (while very useful) isn’t enough.
What you and I need is an investment more precious than gold: A Resilient Community.
A community that provides everything that a pile of gold cannot. A stable environment that produces food, energy, water, a security. An environment supported by a network of people that actually care whether you succeed or fail.

So, go ahead and put some of your money into gold. However, if you are exceptionally savvy, put some of that money into a Resilient Community. It may be the best investment you ever make. Here’s a potential rule that we should try to quantify: for every ounce of gold you buy, invest an equivalent amount into a resilient community.

INTERESTING WEBSITE FOR THE COMMUNITY-INCLINED--CHECK IT OUT

http://www.resilientcommunities.com/avoiding-social-breakdown/

If you want a glimpse of the future for the US, UK, etc. all you need to do is tune into what is going on in Greece. Greece is financially bankrupt, like all Western countries. They just happened to get there first...If we use my friend Dmitry Orlov‘s five stages of collapse as our reference, Greece is at stage 4.

Financial collapse.

Economic collapse.

Political collapse.

Social collapse. <– Where Greece is

Cultural collapse.

What does social collapse mean?

In the case of Greece right now, it means people turn on each other:

burned out shells of buildings due to regular riots,

a spike in crime that reaches into even the smallest towns (where thefts, let alone murders, were unusual), and

a boom in corruption as government employees see their wages slashed in half.

As bad as this is, it can and will likely get worse. This is the future for the West. It isn’t something that some canned goods and bottled water can help you with. The crisis in Greece has already been going on for four years and it is likely to last more than a decade (even if things don’t get worse everywhere else, which they will).

This is a future that we can prepare for. A future we can avoid...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/02/the_little_economy_that_could

If you're looking for an unlikely economic success story, you can hardly do better than Mauritius...All right, confess: If you've heard of Mauritius at all, it's probably because you know it as the former home of the dodo bird. But there are better reasons to look closely at this small island nation in the Indian Ocean, some 600 miles southeast of Madagascar. For in 2011, Mauritius was (again) ranked number one on the Ibrahim Index of governance among African countries. And by no coincidence, it remains one of the top economic performers in the region: Measured in terms of purchasing power, income per person exceeds $15,000 -- more than Turkey or Brazil.

.........................................................

Hardly anybody forecast a happy economic future for Mauritius before it was granted independence from Britain in 1968. To the contrary: the British economist James Meade (who would go on to win a Nobel Prize) concluded that "the outlook for peaceful development is poor" because of its high population density, reliance on a single crop (sugar cane), and ethnic conflict. He might have added that the island was far from markets for its exports, and a daunting plane journey for European tourists in search of sunshine...Whatever the reasons for Mauritius' economic success (we'll get back to that), it came at a steady pace, and in ways that spread the wealth. Between 1970 and 2010, the GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.4 percent, compared with the African average of about 1 percent... Mauritius... ranks second in Africa (after the Seychelles) on the UN's Human Development Index. And the ranking is reflected in common-sense measures of living standards ranging from life expectancy (74 years) to the portion of the population with easy access to safe drinking water (99 percent).

Mauritius' commitment to open trade and the rule of law (reflected in its ranking on the aforementioned Ibrahim Governance Index as well as the less subjective Index of African Governance calculated at Harvard) do correlate well with growth. But what made Mauritius choose the virtuous path? ...unlike any other African country, the country rapidly developed a manufacturing sector (specializing in textiles and clothing). Second, Mauritius has successfully navigated the vagaries of the global economy, on which it is so dependent. It managed to contain the damage from the oil price shocks of the 1970s, and it took in stride the successive losses of preferred access to rich-country markets for sugar and apparel. The adjustments didn't demand novel policies. Mauritius focused on export growth, maintained a business-friendly climate, pursued effective diplomacy to sustain access to critical global markets, took care to prevent its currency from becoming overvalued, and spent enough on education to create a productive labor force. But it is not enough to listen to the advice of the World Bank and crew. If the policies don't mesh with local politics and institutions, they are unlikely to take root. And here, one can see a powerful synergy between democracy and economic growth. Unlike most newly independent African countries, Mauritius created political institutions that gave a voice to both the rural poor and to ethnic minorities. Also important, Mauritius (like Costa Rica, another big winner in another region full of losers) chose not to establish a standing army. This likely saved it from military coups - and it certainly saved it a lot of money, which was spent on education and infrastructure.... Good institutions led to prosperity. But why did Mauritius, in contrast to so many other post-colonial nations, end up with good institutions? The best answers include historical accident and leadership.

Descendents of the French émigrés who developed the sugar plantations, along with the Creoles whose ancestors had worked the plantations as slaves, initially opposed independence because they feared domination by the majority ethnic Hindus. But they eventually agreed to cede political power in return for guarantees that their property would not be expropriated. Meanwhile the first prime minister, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, was able to persuade his constituents to abandon efforts to nationalize the sugar plantations in return for this acknowledgment of their majority political status. (His son, Navin Chandra Ramgoolam, is the current prime minister...) Some credit also goes to the outgoing colonial administrators -- and the reality that Britain really didn't have a dog in this fight. Very few British settlers arrived to displace the French planters when France lost the island in the Napoleonic Wars. Thus, in contrast to, say, Kenya, the British felt little obligation to protect stranded colonists. Accordingly, they had some credibility as the honest broker between ethnic groups. And they set the precedent that governments must be party coalitions -- one that has held to this day...Even though Mauritius had ceased to be the crossroads of the Indian Ocean when the Suez Canal opened in 1869, it has retained a cosmopolitan mindset - one of several respects in which it resembles entrepot city-states such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. This cosmopolitanism came in handy in the process of economic development. Ethnic links to China and India led directly to the rise of the textile and apparel sector and to a financial center, respectively. When outside shocks hit - the oil price increases, loss of trade preferences and subsequent competition from China - Mauritius was able to meet the challenges with policies that allowed the economy to diversify and thrive. And strikingly, the necessary policy responses were implemented over successive administrations, even as the government was engulfed in furious personal and factional politics.

Mauritius is unique in many ways. But this odd little country does offer three lessons in what would sustain growth in other African countries -- if not much insight into how to get from here to there. First, trade is the key to growth. Openness forces economic interests to compete in global markets and deters what economists call "rent-seeking" -- that is, creating pockets of economic privilege and hanging on to them. Second, the malign economic consequences of deep ethnic divisions can be moderated by a political structure that is truly inclusive and prevents winner-take-all outcomes. Third, even in relatively undeveloped countries, democracies can manage painful economic reforms because a sense of inclusiveness makes it easier to impose collective sacrifice....My own candidate for the X-factor is the simple fact that all Mauriciens are descendents of people who came from somewhere else relatively recently. When migrants are successful, perhaps because they are self-selected for initiative, the natives are inclined to resent their success. But just three centuries ago, Mauritius was uninhabited. (The same, by the way, is true of the Seychelles and Cape Verde, which also top the African governance listings.) Consider, too, that in a land in which no one is truly a native, no one can claim the privileges of incumbency that are potent obstacles to compromise and change. The important thing is for everyone to feel included.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-02-05/lifestyle/31027793_1_library-doors-town-library-parking-lot

A COUPLE OF MINUTES past 8 p.m., five days after the Halloween storm had blacked out much of Boxborough, Maureen Strapko ushered out the last patron from the town library and locked the doors for the night. While most of that northwest-of-Boston community - like much of the region - remained in the dark, the Sargent Memorial Library had been welcoming the biggest crowds of Strapko’s decade-long tenure. That’s mainly because restoring power to key town facilities like the fire and police departments had also turned it back on at the nearby library.

Across the week, the place had become a refuge for weary residents needing to warm up, use the bathroom, and recharge their laptop batteries. Strapko had come to know the precise location of each of the library’s 48 electrical outlets in the public areas and had even granted needy patrons access to the outlets in the staff areas. Since the storm, she had opened the library early and closed it late, seeing the protracted power outage as an opportunity to put into action her belief that libraries should be vibrant community centers, not morgues where people are ssshhhh’d into submission.

In truth, there was another reason Strapko was so willing to put in the extra hours. She had no interest in going home. Her house in neighboring Bolton was also without power, and when there - with no electricity, no heat or hot water, no working refrigerator, no Internet and no phone - she and her husband were left feeling isolated and irritable. She knew the helplessness that nearly 2 million New Englanders were experiencing: the frustration of being ignored or strung along by their electric company; the impulse to clear out of town and cash in every accumulated Marriott rewards point at whichever highway-ramp Courtyard still had a vacant room.

After locking the library doors, Strapko found her husband waiting for her in his car. They headed out of town to a well-lit restaurant for an unhurried supper of hot soup. When they returned to the library to retrieve her car, it was about 10 o’clock. Strapko was astonished to see that there were still half a dozen cars, sport utility vehicles and Priuses alike, idling in the parking lot, the drivers’ faces lit by the bluish glow of their laptop and smartphone screens. She later learned that all week long, people had been lingering in the parking lot into the early hours of the morning, unwilling to disconnect from the library’s 24-hour Wi-Fi lifeline. A dozen years into the new century, this is how hopelessly reliant we’ve all become on power....In much of the developing world, even in large cities, people expect that at some point during the day, the power will cut out, no matter your location or your station in life.

MUCH MORE AT LINK AND FOOD FOR THOUGHT AND PLANNING ACTION

THE TROUBLE with the future of power isn’t that there is one big problem that could croak us. It’s that there are a host of them, any one of which could croak us. Let’s group them into three categories.

Bucket No. 1 involves what the insurance-policy fine print calls “Acts of God.’’ Here we’re talking about all those “storms of the century’’ that seem to be arriving with unsettling frequency. Although people can debate the reasons behind it, by now the trend is clear, says Tierney, a partner with Boston-based Analysis Group. “Extreme weather events will be more common.’’ In fact, the government recorded more extreme-weather disasters in the United States in 2011 alone than it did in all of the 1980s combined. And as the Halloween storm showed, even people in neighborhoods with underground power lines won’t necessarily escape outages, because those lines are fed somewhere along the route by aboveground equipment...What’s more, Mother Nature can hit us with a lot more than just high winds and heavy snow. Consider the solar storm. Magnetic activity of the sun can cause severe disturbances in the upper atmosphere that can seriously damage our electrical grid, corrode oil and gas pipelines, and mess with high-frequency radio communications and GPS satellites. This isn’t some science-fiction plotline. It took just 90 seconds for a 1989 solar storm to cause the collapse of the Hydro-Quebec power grid, leaving 6 million Canadians without power for up to nine hours. A 2008 NASA-funded report noted the risk of significant damage to our interconnected grid in light of the forecast for increased solar activity. The 11-year solar cycle is expected to peak in 2013, and just two weeks ago we saw one of the biggest solar-radiation storms in years. Although that event left us unharmed, one model predicts that if we suffer a solar storm similar in intensity to one back in 1921, which was 10 times bigger than the 1989 Canadian storm, more than 130 million people could be left in the dark.

Let’s call Bucket No. 2 “Acts of Terrorists.’’ Among these, there’s the old-fashioned physical attack on the bulk power system, either at its source of generation or somewhere along its transmission route. There’s the newfangled cyber attack on the computers controlling our interconnected grid. And then there’s the otherworldly-sounding attack by an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, weapon...Analyst Sue Tierney is far more concerned about cyber threats. No bomb needed - just serious hacking qualifications, and these days it seems everybody knows a gloomy 17-year-old who’s got those. In what is widely believed to have been an Israeli-American covert effort, the Stuxnet computer worm was unleashed on the Iranian nuclear program in 2010, ruining about a fifth of the centrifuges the country uses to enrich uranium. It would be naive to think our country won’t eventually find itself on the other side of a similar attack....

Finally, Bucket No. 3 is the “Ailing Grid’’ itself. In many places, the infrastructure is as old and stooped as a pensioner. As it is upgraded and its capacity is expanded, our rapacious need for more electrical power races to max it out once again. Many of the new sources of power that were promised as solutions for tomorrow - think nuclear - now seem dated and misguided. Who’s going to greenlight a new nuclear power plant around here after what happened in Japan? As it is, there are mounting questions about the future of nuclear power plants in Massachusetts and Vermont, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing to close down that state’s Indian Point nuclear plant, which helps light up Manhattan’s skyscrapers. Indian Point’s backers are pushing back, producing pamphlets that depict kids doing homework by candlelight - burn those pencils, baby - and moms preparing dinner while wearing headlamps....

It was a great dry run and many valuable lessons were learned.

1. You can never have too much ice. If you have a freezer, freeze jugs of water too.

2. You can never have too many batteries. Rechargable and solar rechargers are worth their weight in gold.

3. Get to know your neighbors beforehand. Having someone that has a gun is good. just the sight of someone on the porch keeping watch with a gun close by keeps the trouble makers away.

4. Have block parties and cookout. This makes your food and fuel go farther. I never ate so good. Food from fridges went first, the food from freezers that had no generator back up then freezers. We grilled like crazy.

5. Forget all electric. Those that had gas ovens, generally had hot water. Have a shower at someones house had a whole new meaning.

6. Share share share. Those with generators or got power early graciously helped recharge. It was a common site to see heavy duty extension cords running across neighborhood streets. I recharged many a friend's phone and brought ice to a family with young children. Eateries would direct you to outlets or help you out if you needed a charge. Fuel was pooled and shared with people with generators and they inturn sharedtheir power.

7. Candles, lamps, and flashlights. Never pass candles for sale after a holiday. You burn through them at an incrediable rate. Have a variety of light sources.

8. Games, board games, books, and toys that don't require batteries save your sanity.

We are communal or pack animals by our nature. This is what has helped us survive and thrive. This is what will help us in the future. Get active in a network, clan, neighborhood, or family. We are not meant to go it alone.

But we truly need to redesign everyday life if the US is to survive. And that doesn't mean nuclear.

but if we are waiting for the government for answers, we will be waiting for a long time....remember who they answer to... their corperate masters.

Brother is experimenting with solar and wind in his spare time. He has come up with several clever adaptations. My fav is the smoker that heats the house.

Do you think the government really wants us to use those free sources? I think the only reason why we don't have them available to us now is that they haven't figured a way to tax or charge us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/business/mortgage-tornado-warning-unheeded.html

YEARS before the housing bust — before all those home loans turned sour and millions of Americans faced foreclosure — a wealthy businessman in Florida set out to blow the whistle on the mortgage game. His name is Nye Lavalle...after losing a family home to foreclosure, under what he thought were fishy circumstances, Mr. Lavalle, founder of a consulting firm called the Sports Marketing Group, began a new life as a mortgage sleuth. In 2003, when home prices were flying high, he compiled a dossier of improprieties on one of the giants of the business, Fannie Mae.

In hindsight, what he found looks like a blueprint of today’s foreclosure crisis. Even then, Mr. Lavalle discovered, some loan-servicing companies that worked for Fannie Mae routinely filed false foreclosure documents, not unlike the fraudulent paperwork that has since made “robo-signing” a household term. Even then, he found, the nation’s electronic mortgage registry was playing fast and loose with the law — something that courts have belatedly recognized, too.

You might wonder why Mr. Lavalle didn’t speak up. But he did. For two years, he corresponded with Fannie executives and lawyers. Fannie later hired a Washington law firm to investigate his claims. In May 2006, that firm, using some of Mr. Lavalle’s research, issued a confidential, 147-page report corroborating many of his findings. And there, apparently, is where it ended. There is little evidence that Fannie Mae’s management or board ever took serious action. Known internally as O.C.J. Case No. 5595, in reference to the company’s Office of Corporate Justice, this 2006 report suggests just how deep, and how far back, our mortgage and foreclosure problems really go.

“It is axiomatic that the practice of submitting false pleadings and affidavits is unlawful,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “With his complaint, Mr. Lavalle has identified an issue that Fannie Mae needs to address promptly.” What Fannie Mae knew about abusive foreclosure practices, and when it knew it, are crucial questions as Congress and the Obama administration weigh the future of the company and its cousin, Freddie Mac. These giants eventually blew themselves apart and, so far, they have cost taxpayers $150 billion. But before that, their size and reach — not only through their own businesses, but also through the vast amount of work they farm out to law firms and loan servicers — meant that Fannie and Freddie shaped the standards for the entire mortgage industry. Almost all of the abuses that Mr. Lavalle began identifying in 2003 have since come to widespread attention. The revelations have roiled the mortgage industry and left Fannie, Freddie and big banks with potentially enormous legal liabilities. More worrying is that the kinds of problems that Mr. Lavalle flagged so long ago, and that Fannie apparently ignored, have evicted people from their homes through improper or fraudulent foreclosures.

REAL REPORTING, AND FROM THE NYTIMES!

http://www.businessinsider.com/art-cashin-beware-the-ides-of-marchor-maybe-a-few-days-later-2012-2

People are giving up on the Greek/Debtor deal and starting to whisper about structured default, according to UBS floor trader Art Cashin. Those whispers could get much louder ahead of Greece's March 20 deadline to repay 14.5 billion euros in debt...in the opinion of almost everyone, Greece can’t be saved - at least not in their current state. That leads to the growing speculation that, behind the scenes, the EU and the IMF are scrambling to find some way to structure a controlled, structured default.

No one is sure how you might structure it. You would not only need to cordon off the current Greek debt, you would probably need to cordon off the Greek banks also to prevent a contagion to the whole European banking system. You might even need a multi-day bank holiday to prevent folks from rushing to withdraw Euros and rush them to safety across borders in Switzerland or elsewhere.

No ready solution jumps off the page. It would potentially be fraught with risk and might threaten the whole financial system. But, if they could pull it off, it would be perfect. Kind of like a financial version of cold fusion. The calendar is ticking and inaction is suicidal. We think the rumors and speculation will continue. Try not to bite your nails.

http://www.businessinsider.com/alpine-new-jersey-richest-zip-code-photos-mansions-2011-10

Forget East Hampton's 11937 and Beverly Hills' 90210--the most prestigious zip code in America is officially 07620. It belongs to Alpine, New Jersey, an enclave of around 2,400 that counts some of business and pop culture's best known names among its residents.

The borough, less than nine miles from Manhattan, recently topped Forbes' list of the most expensive zip codes in America...Most people value Alpine for its privacy. Unlike other expensive zip codes where high taxes pay for a bevvy of municipal services, Alpine has a relatively low tax rate, thanks in part to the fact that it doesn't have a high school or mail delivery. In fact, it has barely any commerce at all--the only restaurant is Kiku, a hibachi house on the outskirts of town.

The median home price in Alpine is $4.55 million, while the most expensive home on the market, the historic stone mansion on the Frick estate, is listed at an eye-popping $53 million...

PHOTO TOUR AT LINK

http://www.businessinsider.com/lloyd-blankfein-having-lunch-with-bill-clinton-2012-2

what's left.

chilly here, should hit upper 60s this afternoon, 72 tomorrow.

My poor little snowdrops are bent over with the cold...I hope they revive. They did yesterday. But how much adversity can a living thing take?

http://www.theplantexpert.com/springbulbs/Snowdrop.html

Garden Snowdrop
The major benefit of planting Garden Snowdrops is their early arrival. They can show up weeks before crocuses do, and will often poke through a covering of snow. In the South, snowdrops may even bloom all winter long.

A snowdrop plant looks like three drops of milk hanging from a stem. This accounts for the Latin name Galanthus which means "milk-white flowers".

Since they are small, you probably need to plant a large number to make a dramatic effect. However, in a rock garden, or planted among other early-blooming plants like Snow Crocuses, an odd number of snowdrops here and there can be just as effective.

Under the right circumstances (see Notes) snowdrops will naturalize very well, and a planting of them can last a lifetime. They are well worth the investment. As an added benefit, snowdrops (like other members of the Amaryllis family) are normally avoided by deer and rodents.

These are the brave little flowers that showed up on New Years. And they have multiplied to make a nice clump. I'm going to try to spread them out a bit this year, so they have more room to multiply and fill up the darkness of winter with a memory of green growing things.

if the conditions are right they'll go and go and go.

they're so pretty -- it's a little warm for them here -- and i couldn't grow them at all in cali.

bummer. I love little flowers.

http://www.theplantexpert.com/springbulbs/LilyoftheValley.html

Lilies of the Valley have clusters of small, white, bell-shaped flowers that hang from a strong reedy stalk. There may be a dozen or more blossoms per plant. Their outstanding feature is their sweet fragrance; their scent has even inspired perfumes. The best way to appreciate the fragrance is to plant Lilies of the Valley along a walkway or in raised containers which you regularly pass by.

Lilies of the Valley don't actually have bulbs. They have a rhizome (which is like a long, thin, sideways-growing, carrot-like root). The rhizome has large buds, called pips, which produce new stalks and leaves. Garden catalogues and nurseries will either sell a complete potted plant, or a package of pips, from which you can start new plants. Use the second alternative, pips, if all possible, as they are much cheaper.

Lilies of the Valley are easy to grow under most conditions, though they do best in partial shade. Once they are well rooted they will spread indefinitely by means of the underground rhizomes. They are an excellent ground cover that lasts until frost sets in. Once they are well extablished, they will form large clumps that need almost no care and live for many years.

All varieties have a fragrance; I have indicated this by putting an asterisk (*) after the name of each variety.

Flowering time: Late spring
Plant height: 6 -12" (15 - 30 cm)
Minimum planting depth: Plant pips 1" (2 -3 cm) below soil surface
For already potted plants, make sure soil around plant is well tamped down and plant is well watered
Hardiness zones: Can survive in zones 2 - 9, but does best in zones 3 - 7
Colours: White; however, the cultivated variety Rosea is pale pink
Shape/form: A dozen or more fragrant, nodding, bell-shaped blossoms suspended from a strong, reedy stalk
Two or three broad, upright, glossy, pointed leaves
Alternate names: Latin name: Convallaria majalis
Notes: Good as a container plant, ground cover, cut flower, in borders, rock gardens, under trees or shrubs, or in a woodland garden
Tolerates both acid and alkaline soil, sun and shade, but prefers partial shade with moist, humus-rich soil
Warnings: All parts of the plant are poisonous
Where well adapted, plants can become invasive
Example varieties: Fortin's Giant* (larger white blossoms), Rosea* (pink, most intense when blossom first opens, then a pale pink)






*** don't put them where the dogs are -- if they eat plants. they're poisonous.

My mother had a huge clump of them by the back porch and I used to love watching for the stalks to blossom, then pick a few to carry around with me. I think they were transplanted from my grandparents' house -- my grandfather was an avid amateur gardner and rock-garden-builder. I'll have to check with some of the local folks to see if they grow here.

and of course -- because of that -- i love them.

We have a huge - what is right word? clump? batch? - neither sounds right to me? - anyway, a LOT - and they spread every year. Such a lovely fragrance, and so perfect, the little bells ...

We had them when we had three dogs and also wandering neighborhood dogs - none ever ate any. We have a cat - she's never eaten any either.

now most dogs i've ever had wouldn't bother with plants.

but not petunia -- she's attacking my camellias as we speak.
tearing the branches off and eating the forming buds .

that dog is making me old before my time.

The fragrance isn't as strong, though, and tends to fade quickly.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_IRELAND_EARNS_BANK_OF_IRELAND?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-02-20-04-00-51

DUBLIN (AP) -- Bank of Ireland, the only one of Ireland's six banks to avoid nationalization, on Monday reported it returned to net profit in 2011 thanks to heavy debt restructuring in the face of continued losses from dud loans.

Bank of Ireland said it netted euro40 million ($52.8 million) in profit thanks in part to a euro230 million tax refund. The Dublin-based bank recorded a net loss of euro609 million in 2010.

It is the first Irish bank to record a net profit of any kind since Ireland's long-booming economy came crashing down in 2009 amid a burst property bubble.

Bank of Ireland underscored its funding strength versus its two surviving domestic rivals, state-owned Allied Irish Banks and Irish Life & Permanent. Its deposits increased 9 percent to euro71 billion, chiefly at the bank's British division, while its reliance on short-term liquidity loans from the European and Irish central banks fell 29 percent to euro22 billion.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MARDI_GRAS_FLOAT_FACTORY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-02-20-07-46-10

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- As Carnival builds toward its out-of-control crescendo of Fat Tuesday, Barry Kern and his team of float-builders and artists are already preparing for next year's parades.

One of the biggest free parties in the world fuels a multimillion-dollar industry for the city of New Orleans and the lifeblood of businesses like Kern's studio, which has been operating for more than 50 years and makes or repurposes some 400 floats a year, or roughly a float a day, Kern said.

The Mardi Gras season, which includes weeks of parades, fancy balls and parties leading up to the big day, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to New Orleans each year, said Kelly Schulz, spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau. Schulz said a recent study conducted by Tulane University estimated the direct economic impact of Mardi Gras at roughly $144 million.

Some studies estimate the economic impact at more than $500 million, said Arthur Hardy, a Mardi Gras historian.

Hurricane, Mardi Gras, Crawfish, and LSU football.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb12/beyond-policy-tweaks02-12.html

The nation's ills cannot be fixed by thousands of pages of regulation or more policy tweaks. Only a profound cultural transformation can address our problems.

The mainstream view uniting the entire political spectrum is that all our financial problems can be fixed by what amounts to top-down, centralized policy tweaks and regulation: for example, tweaking policies to "tax the rich," limit the size of "too big to fail" financial institutions, regulate credit default swaps, lower the cost of healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare), limit the abuses of student loans to pay for online diploma mills, and on and on and on.

But what if the rot is already beyond the reach of more top-down policy tweaks? Consider the recent healthcare legislation: thousands of pages of obtuse regulations that require a veritable army of regulators staffing a sprawling fiefdom with the net result of uncertain savings based on a board somewhere in the labyrinth establishing "best practices" that will magically cut costs in a system that expands by 9% a year, each and every year, a system so bloated with fraud, embezzlement and waste that the total sum squandered is incalculable, but estimated at around 40%, minimum.

Does anyone really think that the lack of another centralized Federal fiefdom and thousands of pages of additional regulation is what ails sickcare? Of course not. In effect, we as a society have completely lost the ability to honestly admit a problem exists and that the solution is not to paper it all over with more regulation and insatible, ever-rising debt-based funding, paid for by our children, grandchildren, and their children...

MORE EXAMPLES OF SCLEROTIC PAPER-BOUND GOVERNMENT...AT LINK

http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov10/going-thru-motions11-10.html

A profound realization hit me last night: America is just going through the motions now--of reform, of healthcare, of everything. America's leadership--both its elected and appointed officials, and its "shadow" Financial Power Elite leadership (the corporatocracy of crony Capitalist cartels and rentier/speculative parasites) are just going through the motions of financial reform. And the American public is resigned to just going through the motions of accepting the travesty of a mockery of a sham that is called "reform," too, even as they understand in their bones that nothing has been fixed and the next financial crisis has already been cooked into their future.

One of our few reliable voice of reason in the world of finance, Simon Johnson, has already laid bare how the the next financial crisis and inevitable bailout of the banking parasites will unfold. His article in The New Republic Way Too Big To Fail reveals how the "too big to fail" banks have shredded the wet paper bag of "reform" Congress went through the motions of conjuring up: they are quickly expanding globally, beyond the reach of any mere nation-state's grasp.

When the liquidity/speculation/leverage/toxic-asset bubble bursts again--and I think a strong case can be made that we are seeing the incipient signs of that bubble bursting in emerging markets, commodities and elsewhere--then the only nation-states with enough borrowing power to bail out the global banks will be the American Empire-- or more correctly, the shocked and dazed taxpayers of the Empire--the EU and Japan.

Unfortunately, all three have already socialized staggering bank losses, shifting the burdens of future meltdowns to the State itself. ...Real reform occurs when the political class of toadies, sycophants, leeches and cowards is forced by a near-universal public outrage to pass simple, powerful legislation and the budgetary resources to enforce that legislation. For example, the landmark environmental laws of the 1970s. Rivers in America used to catch fire before this Federal legislation; now they don't. There was a true passion and desire in the nation to clean up the industrial pollution that was destroying the nation's commons.

2/19/12 Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

“You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”

The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.

The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.

more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/icelandic-anger-brings-record-debt-relief-in-best-crisis-recovery-story.html

http://news.yahoo.com/icelands-financial-watchdog-sacks-director-230822492.html

Iceland's Financial Surveillance Authority (FME) said on Saturday it had sacked director Gunnar Andersen following a report into his time as an executive at failed bank Landsbanki. The FME said the report showed that, in a response to a request by the FME in 2001 for information on Landsbanki's international operations, Andersen left out two Guernsey-registered companies owned by a holding company that was foreign-registered albeit fully owned by Landsbanki. The FME said in a statement on its website that Andersen did nothing illegal at the time but the news risked tarnishing his credibility as director of the FME.

"Our view is not that these events cast doubt on him as a fit and proper person to perform his day-to-day duties but as this information is now in the public eye, it could distract the operation of the FME and reduce public trust and confidence in the institution," the report, commissioned by the FME and posted on its website, said.

Andersen had long left Landsbanki when it and Iceland's other two main banks failed in the 2008 financial crisis under the weight of debts taken on amid rapid overseas expansion.

Daily Morgunbladid quoted Andersen, appointed FME director in 2009, as saying he would "forcefully fight" for his job and denying any wrongdoing.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12763/there_is_not_enough_work_nearly_half_of_mexicans_now_officially_poor/


A woman and her son stand in front of an abandoned home in Juarez, Mexico. According to recently released figures, more than 46 percent of Mexicans live in poverty. (PhotoSpencer Platt/Getty Images)

OAXACAO, MEXICO—The night is long and lonely and taxi driver Fernando has no choice but to endlessly troll the streets. It is the only way he can earn a living, driving from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. seven nights a week, and even then it’s barely enough to get by. “It is difficult. The salaries are low. There is not enough work. And everything is more expensive,” says the middle-aged driver as he cruises the streets of this historic southern Mexican city.

The latest figures about poverty and Mexican workers’ fate show that he understands the nation’s financial reality as well as any economist. The ranks of Mexico’s poor grew from 48.8 to 52 million between 2008 and 2010, according to figures recently released by the National Council for Social Development Policy, a federally funded agency. That meant about 46 percent of more than 112 million Mexicans were living in poverty in 2010. The government says someone is poor if they earn less than $181 a month in an urban area, and $113 in a rural area.

But the growth in poverty was uneven, according to news reports. Much of the increase was spread across large cities and in the northern states. And Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest states, was one of the five states with the greatest increases in poverty.

What caused the upward spiral in despair?
Unemployment, low wages and rising food costs are the answers offered by most experts.

The washing machine repairman will be coming tomorrow....at which point, I may regain sanity....keep our household in your thoughts....

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11306/vulture-capitalism-gets-makeover

The candidacy of Mitt Romney for President of the United States has drawn scrutiny to the practices of the "private equity" industry. Tired of being bashed as greedy "vulture capitalists," the industry has launched an effort to polish its image.

The Private Equity Growth Capital Council (PEGCC), a trade group representing many of the most powerful firms in the venture capital and private equity industry, recently announced its intention to begin a new media initiative called "Private Equity At Work" to correct what it views as "a real lack of understanding about private equity."

Private equity firms use the funds of their investors to buy up struggling companies. These companies are then retooled to enhance their perceived potential for profitability and are subsequently resold for a profit. Critics argue that private equity firms often force their corporate clients to cut jobs, increase their debt load or close solely to benefit the private equity firm's bottom line.

Steve Judge, the president and CEO of PEGCC, claims that the campaign seeks to dispel these concerns by highlighting the industry's "proven record of strengthening companies, creating jobs, and delivering impressive returns to pensions and other investors."

http://www.alternet.org/story/154210/84_percent_of_san_francisco_foreclosures_fraudulent--why_are_bankers_still_getting_away_with_crimes/

Last week, five of the nation’s largest banks and 49 of its attorneys general announced a $26 billion settlement that essentially let the banks off the hook for the widespread use of fraudulent documents in the foreclosure process. Thursday, the San Francisco County assessor released an audit suggesting that many, many more demonstrable crimes were committed during the foreclosure bust of the past few years. My use of passive tense is not accidental; the audit doesn’t name names, though it’s long past time we start doing so.

“It is very apparent that the system is broken from many different vantage points,” Phil Ting, the county assessor, told the New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson. Actually, someone broke the system, and evidence that the break was willful is now piled as high as banking execs’ bonuses. Morgenson describes the audit as such: “About 84 percent of the files contained what appear to be clear violations of law, it said, and fully two-thirds had at least four violations or irregularities.”

That’s not a quirk. That’s not a system that needs tweaking. That’s not even incompetence. It’s rampant lawlessness. And it’s by design.

Many lawmakers and regulators continue to politely avoid saying as much, because it would naturally lead to uncomfortable places. Acknowledging the crime forces dirty words like “prosecution” and, worse, “reparation.” These are words our lawmakers are far more comfortable hurling at the ‘hood than at the Street. But as Morgenson notes, knowingly filing false documents with any public office in California is a felony. Some people in corner suites could lose their right to vote.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3338761/goldman-sachs-programmer-freed-from-prison/

Aleynikov has spent eight months in a New Jersey federal prison. The programmer, originally from Russia, had been accused of copying long lines of algorithmic code used in Goldman Sachs' high frequency trading platform, and uploading them to a server in Germany. He was accused of attempting to take the code to a new employer.

Aleynikov's lawyers had argued during the original trial that he was downloading open source code. He also made no attempt to share the code with his new employers, high frequency trading firm Teza Technologies, they said, where he was due to have his salary nearly tripled from what he was earning at Goldman Sachs.

snip:

In other Goldman Sachs news, last week it emerged that a high-profile former IT analyst at the company, Henry King, is reportedly under investigation for leaking insider trading information. US authorities, thought to include the FBI, are said to be investigating allegations that King passed on to hedge funds a raft of insider information pertaining to technology companies.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/price-hikes-catch-up-to-us-food-makers-2012-02-17

we have changed our eating patterns.

Cold cereal is overpriced. If we eat it it is the generic. We eat more oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of rice, and rice. Our new fav is cold corn meal mush. We fry it with a a little butter and put maple syrup on it. We have many cheaper alternatives.

I have a stocked pantry so if I buy things anymore, they are on sale only and I have a coupon. I unit price shop so I get the bargins. I went in Sunday to get some fresh fruit and toothpaste. A clerk was making down the beef, hamburger $1.98/#, steaks, and pork loin $ 2.29/#. I filled up my fridge freezer. Also got 2 for 1 bread. I had a $2 off coupon for the tooth paste. I don't get money back-but we eat like kings and seldom eat out anymore.

I also mix some of the leftovers in with the dry dog food. The dogs couldn't be happier and healthier. I had trouble keeping weight on the older dog but not now.

And these are the good-sized boxes. 50% off at Publix, plus $1 off coupons.

she rocks

Equities started the century at valuations that are associated with low or negative subsequent long run returns. They are now at valuations usually associated with respectably positive long term returns, at least in the continued absence of any of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/3JFELL/ORCGK2/RP6QL/08Z4K8/8ZRJKV/SN/t?a1=2012&a2=2&a3=20

SOUNDS LIKE BULL TO ME, NOT A BULL MARKET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/19/peter-skyllberg-swedish-man-survives-two-months-in-snow-covered-car_n_1287586.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D136973

THIS SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT SWEDISH MEN WHO CAN GO MISSING FOR TWO MONTHS AND NOBODY NOTICES...

DID I EVER MENTION MY EX?

Peter Skyllberg, a 44-year-old man from Sweden, survived two months trapped in his snow-covered car due to a "natural igloo" that formed from the air trapped in the vehicle, the Telegraph reports.

In a stroke of luck, a passerby found Skyllberg in his car in Umea, a town a little south of the Arctic Circle, where the Telegraph reports authorities say he was in "really bad shape." He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital, where he is expected to be released in a few days after a full recovery. The temperature in the area had reportedly dropped to -30 F.

Doctor Ulf Segerberg, the Chief Medical Officer at Norrland's University Hospital told the paper in a separate report that, combined with the igloo effect, it's not unheard of a human to survive without food for that long.

"Starvation for one month, anyone can tolerate that if they have water to drink," Segerberg told the Telegraph. "If you have body fat, you will survive even longer, although you end up looking like someone coming from a concentration camp." ....The BBC reports that one doctor told the Swedish Vasterbotten Courier that Skyllberg survived by going into a "kind of hibernation."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/02/20122204728418987.html

Japan has posted a record trade deficit in January, as fuel imports rose sharply following last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster and exports were hit by a stronger yen and a slump in demand in Europe.

According to data released on Monday, the January deficit touched 1,475bn yen ($18.5bn), the highest since the nation began record-keeping in 1979, the finance ministry said.

The latest figure was more than triple the year-before shortfall of 479.4bn yen and far exceeded the previous monthly record of 967.9bn yen in January 2009 during the financial crisis.

The record figure comes after Tokyo registered an annual trade deficit in 2011, its first in 31 years.

Last edited Mon Feb 20, 2012, 06:09 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/20

In an article titled “Still No End to ‘Too Big to Fail,’” William Greider wrote in The Nation on February 15th:



That may be, but there is one bit of bad behavior that Uncle Sam himself does not have the funds to underwrite: the $32 trillion market in credit default swaps (CDS). Thirty-two trillion dollars is more than twice the U.S. GDP and more than twice the national debt...CDS are a form of derivative taken out by investors as insurance against default. According to the Comptroller of the Currency, nearly 95% of the banking industry’s total exposure to derivatives contracts is held by the nation’s five largest banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs. The CDS market is unregulated, and there is no requirement that the “insurer” actually have the funds to pay up. CDS are more like bets, and a massive loss at the casino could bring the house down.

It could, at least, unless the casino is rigged. Whether a “credit event” is a “default” triggering a payout is determined by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), and it seems that the ISDA is owned by the world’s largest banks and hedge funds. That means the house determines whether the house has to pay. The Houses of Morgan, Goldman and the other Big Five are justifiably worried right now, because an “event of default” declared on European sovereign debt could jeopardize their $32 trillion derivatives scheme. According to Rudy Avizius in an article on The Market Oracle (UK) on February 15th, that explains what happened at MF Global, and why the 50% Greek bond write-down was not declared an event of default. If you paid only 50% of your mortgage every month, these same banks would quickly declare you in default. But the rules are quite different when the banks are the insurers underwriting the deal.

MF Global: Canary in the Coal Mine?

MF Global was a major global financial derivatives broker until it met its unseemly demise on October 30, 2011, when it filed the eighth-largest U.S. bankruptcy after reporting a “material shortfall” of hundreds of millions of dollars in segregated customer funds. The brokerage used a large number of complex and controversial repurchase agreements, or "repos," for funding and for leveraging profit. Among its losing bets was something described as a wrong-way $6.3 billion trade the brokerage made on its own behalf on bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations.

Avizius writes:



MUCH MUCH MORE

SUPPORTING LINKS:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article33140.html

http://www.thenation.com/blog/166277/still-no-end-too-big-fail

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16972761

Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year.

The aim of the research is to develop a more efficient way of producing meat than rearing animals.

At a major science meeting in Canada, Prof Mark Post said synthetic meat could reduce the environmental footprint of meat by up to 60%.

"We would gain a tremendous amount in terms of resources," he said.

AS A COOK, I AM NOT SURE HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS...

It will be a cold day in hell before I knowingly put that, or any GM crap in my stomach. I'll eat TVP first. I'll combine plant proteins.

You are what you eat.

I like my food made/grown as far away from a laboratory as possible.

(slight overreaction on my part, but....)

THE SKY IS FALLING...AND HERE IS THE WHY AND WHEREFORE, AS WELL AS WHO, WHAT, WHEN AND WHERE

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/germany-greece-quietly-prepare-plan-d

IMPOSSIBLE TO SAMPLE--READ IT AND WEEP FOR THE GREEKS

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/business/docx-faces-foreclosure-fraud-charges-in-missouri.html

One of the largest companies that provided home foreclosure services to lenders across the nation, DocX, has been indicted on forgery charges by a Missouri grand jury — one of the few criminal actions to follow reports of widespread improprieties against homeowners.

A grand jury in Boone County, Mo., handed up an indictment Friday accusing DocX of 136 counts of forgery in the preparation of documents used to evict financially strained borrowers from their homes. Lorraine O. Brown, the company’s founder and former president, was indicted on the same charges.

Employees of DocX, a unit of Lender Processing Services of Jacksonville, Fla., executed and notarized millions of mortgage documents for big banks and loan servicers over the years. Lender Processing closed the company in April 2010, after evidence emerged of apparent forgeries in these documents, a practice now called robo-signing.

Chris Koster, the Missouri attorney general, will prosecute the case. “The grand jury indictment alleges that mass-produced fraudulent signatures on notarized real estate documents constitutes forgery,” Mr. Koster said in a statement. “Today’s indictment reflects our firm conviction that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters.” Mr. Koster said his office’s investigation was continuing. This suggests he may hope to persuade Ms. Brown to cooperate in his investigation of the parent company. If convicted, Ms. Brown could face up to seven years in prison for each forgery count. DocX could be fined up to $10,000 for each forgery conviction....MORE

DON'T KNOW HOW WE MISSED THIS--FROM FEB. 6

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20120206/FREE/120209942

Wayne County will send people door to door to offer thousands of foreclosed Detroit homes for as little as $500, a move that would keep a roof over the head of squatters and possibly get properties back on the tax rolls. More than 6,000 Detroit homes, foreclosed because taxes weren’t paid, didn’t sell at auction last fall. The county treasurer’s office doesn’t want to see them abandoned and is willing to negotiate with anyone living inside, including owners who no longer have a right to the property. “A vacant house is not going to help anybody,” Deputy Treasurer Eric Sabree told The Detroit News.

Charles Brown, 62, said he has been squatting in his home for about a year. He said he had installed windows and doors and uses the fireplace for heat. “I am still doing a lot of work,” Brown said. “It would mean a lot if I could keep it.” ...A neighbor who rents, Freda Armstrong, said she would have purchased Brown’s house at auction. “That is a brick house. I would have fixed it up,” she said. “A lot of people don’t even know these houses are for sale.”

A similar program last year led to the sale of 1,200 homes. The city of Detroit isn’t endorsing what county tax officials are doing with the real estate. Ed McNeil, who negotiates labor contracts for union-represented city employees, said it seems unfair to reward people when someone in the same neighborhood may never have missed a tax bill.

Indeed, retiree George Philson, 63, pays $1,800 a year. “I would rather have them meet their obligation like I am meeting my obligation,” he said. John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor who studies land issues, said 12,300 Detroit parcels were foreclosed because of unpaid taxes last year. “There is no end in sight,” Mogk said. “The problem is just so large and overwhelming in Detroit.”...The county’s offer could keep Durand and Sharon Micheau in their bungalow, which was purchased in 2010. They lost it because they couldn’t pay three years of unpaid taxes, fines and interest of $17,900. “We are not looking to dodge our responsibility,” said Durand, 42. “If I could pay the taxes right now, I would, but I don’t have the money.”

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/229185/45/Cleveland-City-mistakenly-boards-up-mans-home

Steven Saric has lived in his home on Vineyard Avenue for seven years. One morning last July, he pulled into his driveway to find nails in his windows, his gutters stripped from the sides and his doors boarded up. The City of Cleveland received a complaint that a door was swaying open and grass was overgrown. Saric is paid up on taxes and was working to make improvements to the property, he says.

When a city inspector went out to look, he deemed the home vacant and a demolition company was hired to board it up. Building and Housing Director Ed Rybka says to stay atop of the foreclosure crisis, the city boards up thousands of vacant homes for security reasons. The boards hammered into Saric's home were a mistake, Rybka said. "To respond to a report that a property is open and vacant -- a danger, an attractive nuisance for kids or others -- we take that very seriously," Rybka said. "In this case our inspector went out, but didn't come to the proper conclusion."

Saric says the damage has cost him thousands of dollars and he can not afford the repairs. "A mistake was made. I'm not at fault. This has ruined my life for seven months already. Who is liable?" Saric said.

MORE

they get a clear title. Until then they have buttkiss.

Alternative forms

bobkes, bopkes, bubkes, bupkes, bupkiss, bupkus

Etymology

From Yiddish באָבקעס (bobkes, “(large) beans”), from קאָזעבאָפּקעס (kozebopkes, “goat droppings”), from Proto-Slavic *koza (“goat”), and diminutive of Slavic root боб (bob, “bean”).



bupkis (uncountable): Noun

absolutely nothing; nothing of value, significance, or substance

We searched for hours and found bupkis.

Usage notes

Often translated as meaning small round fecal pellets, referring to the shape of goat droppings. A colorful usage, though more emphatic expression (in Yiddish more so than in English) is "Bupkis mit Kuduchas" (באָבקעס מיט קודוצ׳ה , translating roughly to "shivering shit balls" - kuduchas referring to the condition of generalized shaking palsy.


Not that it's lost anything in your translation to "Texan"

info I can use. I debated on the spelling and came up with the Texas twist. Have we ever had an etymological WEE-highlighting economic and other interesting phrases.

PS rabbit pellets are rounder and when the male rabbit reaches what amounts to their orgasm....they have this shaking palsy after they fall off the female. They look like they had a seizure and died. With the exception of the fainting goats, you don't see much of that anywhere else. My new phrase, shivering goat pellets. Zang

I am usually chuckling whenever I read your posts (it's better when you are laughing with us, though).

I always laugh at myself. I am easily amused.

But she has discovered Barnes and Noble while shopping (I have saved a fortune since Borders and Blockbuster went out of business).

So we are watching Eric Idle as Ko-Ko in a 1987 production of Mikado. It is stunningly British and beautiful. Of course, it is my favorite of all the Gilbert and Sullivan oeuvre...and Eric Idle is my favorite Monty Python member, since the loss of Marty Feldman, who might be considered an auxiliary member...